revolution, Mr. Clay,
as secretary of state under the administration of Mr. Adams, in March of
the years 1825 and 1827, directed Mr. Poinsett, our envoy in Mexico, to
negotiate for the transfer of Texas. This direction was repeated by Mr.
Van Buren to our minister in August, 1829; and was followed by similar
instructions from Mr. Livingston on the 20th of March, 1833, and by Mr.
Forsyth on the 2d of July, 1835. President Jackson, however, was not
contented with negotiations for that province alone; but, looking
forward, with statesmanlike forecast, to the growth and value of our
commerce in the Pacific ocean as well as on the west coast of America,
he required the secretary of state, in August, 1835, to seek from Mexico
a cession of territory, whose boundary, beginning at the mouth of the
Rio Grande, would run along the eastern bank of that river to the
thirty-seventh degree of latitude, and continue thence, by that
parallel, to the Pacific. This demand, if granted by Mexico, not only
secured Texas, but would have included the largest and most valuable
portion of California together with the noble bay of San Francisco, in
which our navy and merchantmen might find a safe and commodious
refuge.[40]

Our anxiety to reannex Texas by peaceable negotiation was not met,
however, by a correspondent feeling upon the part of Mexico.

Mr. Poinsett, on his return from Mexico, informed Mr. Clay that he had
forborne even to make an overture for the repurchase of Texas, because
he knew that such a negotiation would be impracticable, and believed
that any hint of our desire would aggravate the irritations already
existing between the countries.[41] The events which subsequently
transpired in Texas, during the period when emigration increased from
the United States, to that of the actual outbreak of hostilities,
prevented the formation, in Mexico, of any party favorable to such an
enterprise; and, after the war began, all hope of negotiation between us
was dispelled.

"A leading member of the Mexican cabinet once remarked to me," says Mr.
Thompson, in his Recollections of Mexico,[42] "that he believed the
tendency of things was towards the annexation of Texas to the United
States, and that he greatly preferred such a result either to the
independence of Texas or any connection or dependence of Texas upon
England; that if it became an independent power, other departments of
Mexico would unite with it either voluntarily or by conquest